Responding to chief minister J. Jayalalithaa’s repeated demand for 100 per cent allocation of power from the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP), Atomic Energy Commission chairman, Sreekumar Banerjee and NPCIL chairman, S.K. Jain assured at a joint press conference on Thursday that they would recommend an increase in Tamil Nadu’s share of power from KKNPP.
Pointing out that under the existing power sharing plan Tamil Nadu gets 925 MW from the 2,000 MW produced by the first two units at Kudankulam, Karnataka, 442 MW, Kerala, 266 MW, and Pondicherry, 67 MW, Mr Banerjee, who is also DAE secretary, said Tamil Nadu could be allotted more from the surplus 300 MW.
Hoping the first unit that was ready for commissioning at Kudankulam would achieve its fullest generation capacity, he claimed many of the 20 reactors under operation in the country had achieved an average generation performance of 90 per cent, and a few, even 100 per cent.
Mr Banerjee explained that the process to depressurise the reactor pressure vessel would begin once the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) verified the the data on the hot run submitted by the NPCIL and gave its clearance.
Later, the dummy fuel loaded in the first unit core would be removed in preparedness for loading the enriched fuel rods, he added.
About the uranium waste management plan, he said a multiple container vessel was ready for short term storage of the waste and a container vessel for the second unit was being readied as well.
Revealing that the atomic energy department was looking for a suitable spot for long term storage of the waste, he however, said the waste from the first two units of KKNPP would be negligible for the first two decades and could be therefore reprocessed and converted into glass.